Layering on Machine Learning to Speed Data Transformation

February 15, 2016 Nicole Hemsoth There are few more widely recognized names in modern database research than Dr. Joseph Hellerstein. The Berkeley professor and Trifacta co-founder has spawned new approaches to relatively old problems on the programmatic and database design and implementation fronts. Well before the tech world was awash in tales of “big data” woes, Hellerstein and teams were looking ahead at the future problems of data manipulation, transformation, and visualization, which culminated in the Wrangler project, which matched data manipulation and visualization tools with several new layers of automation and flexibility. At the time, around 2011, these allowed additional capabilities in terms of what databases could do—and just as important, the focus on performance made sure it could handle it all faster and more efficiently. For anyone that…